Many of the beautiful crafts in Bali are some form of carving (wood, bone, stone), which the island is famous for. After 4 trips to Bali, we decided to build a home there. The home was to be “Bali Style”, with lots of carving.

Our first problem was to specify what kinds of carving we wanted, so lacking experience otherwise, we took our camera everywhere to record the best examples we could find. Actually the best examples were right in our accommodations Puri Saraswati Bungalows, the Ubud Palace, and the Pura Saraswati Temple. Once we realized this, it was a simple matter to bring the artisans to the examples (of course they already knew what artistic elements were there).

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Balinese traditional architecture, an ancient art that controlled by the ironclad strictness of Asta Kosala Kosali rules always seeks a balance between the environment and the human. The Asta Kosala Kosali governs the Balinese traditional architecture so it will create “Balinese-ness” of the scene, harmony with the surrounding environment and the grace of the structure.

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Building a Balinese traditional house or structure is not a simple matter, not just simply taking natural materials – wood, grass, and stone – and shaping them to fit human needs. Instead, it seeks balance and propriety, in a Hindu sense, between the occupant and the structure, and structure and cosmos.

Man’s body is considered in Hindu thought to be a microcosm or miniature of the universe at large. It is only natural, therefore, that the Balinese should regard their house compounds as extension of same concept of balance between body and environment.

There is a set of traditional rules known as Asta Kosala Kosali that have to be observed in building a Balinese traditional structure. A Balinese traditional structure that is built in accordance with The Asta Kosala Kosali will express a harmony between human body and environment.

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